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[Talvieno]

I am well aware of the fact that DF doesn't take creature size into account. This thread is about map size.

The Magmawiki has nothing that shows the size of Dorfworld compared to our own distances, be it miles or kilometers, and I can't find anything on the forums, either, so I thought I'd do some math and figure things out for myself. What I originally wanted was a full-scale replica of Middle Earth. Tolkien said that it was about 600 miles from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith, which makes Middle Earth (the part represented in the Third Age) approximately 1,800 miles wide, or 2900 kilometers. With this knowledge, I set about finding out the width of a large map in DF.

There are 48 tiles per map area, making a standard "4x4" fortress measure 192 tiles across, and a region tile (16x16) measure 768 tiles across, for a total area of 589,824 tiles.

Toady One has said that a tile measures (approximately) 2x2x3 meters (though he does call that number "arbitrary"):

[...]  Throwing out 2m arbitrarily as a tile edge, we'd be at 100m^2 for the floor space and 1536 m between villages, which I'm more or less comfortable with [...]

[...]I think for the purposes of the minecarts it turned out to be 2m x 2m x 3m [...]

Therefore, if we assume that a tile is two meters across, as he said, then the results are:

Local tile (1/16 x 1/16):
    48 x 48 tiles
    96 x 96 meters
    314.96 x 314.96 feet
Region tile (1 x 1):
    768 x 768 tiles
    1,536 x 1,536 meters = 1.54 x 1.54 kilometers
    5,038.08 x 5,038.08 feet = 0.95 x 0.95 miles

Tiny map (17 x 17):
    13,056 x 13,056 tiles
    26.11 x 26.11 kilometers
    16.22 x 16.22 miles
Smaller (33 x 33):
    25,344 x 25,344 tiles
    50.69 x 50.69 kilometers
    31.49 x 31.49 miles
Small (65 x 65):
    49,920 x 49,920 tiles
    99.84 x 99.84 kilometers
    62.02 x 62.02 miles
Medium (127 x 127):
    97,536 x 97,536 tiles
    195.07 x 195.07 kilometers
    121.18 x 121.18 miles
Large (257 x 257):
    197,376 x 197,376 tiles
    394.75 x 394.75 kilometers
    245.22 x 245.22 miles


So, unfortunately, there's no way to get Middle Earth into DF unless you massively scale it down... I'm posting my findings here, though, so that anybody searching for this same information in the future won't find a total lack of it. It's also open for debate (I love debates, so they're very much welcome here).

[pisskop]

Unfortunately measurements in DF are completely relative.  Unless you assumed human in DF are aproximately the same size IRL as DF.  And even then there is only one size listed, probably a total volume (as opposed to a height, length, etc.)  I am interested in understanding why a bronze collossis can fit into a dwarven tunnel...

How are you determining the size of a tile?

[Talvieno]

Untrue. Creatures are a major exception, as are trees, but the major land features in DF are all scaled correctly, relative to each other. Therefore, a system of measurement will work, so long as you only use it relating to terrain. When picking out a fortress site, you don't exactly need to know how many feet across a bear is, anyway, or any other creature. If you read, I was basing terrain distances on Toady One's estimates (2m x 2m x 3m), which were given in relation to terrain.

If you want to measure how large the world is based on how far you can walk, that's different, and multiplies all values by 3, as an adventurer with maxed stats is capable of walking 32 region tiles in 24 hours, while humans in real life are capable of walking about 96 miles in 24 hours, exactly three times that. However, I think my previous figures are still rather accurate, as the "96 miles in 24 hours" figure doesn't take terrain or vegetation into account. I imagine that your average speed would be much lower while navigating wilderness than while walking along a straight, flat road.

[pisskop]

Toady has specified how big a tile is?  And Im certainly not trying to discredit you, Im just unsure how you had gotten the figures you presented.

[Talvieno]

Toady has specified how big a tile is?  And Im certainly not trying to discredit you, Im just unsure how you had gotten the figures you presented.

The link with the quote was broken, sorry. Should be fixed now, though the date is still messed up. I remember him stating it more recently, too, though I couldn't find where... It was in relation to minecarts, and he used 2x2x3 as a tile size. I'm still looking for that quote, and I'll update the OP when I find it. At the place quoted, he did call it an arbitrary measurement, though, which is why I'm looking for the second quote.

edit: found the quote.

[AutomataKittay]

I've seen a few analysis on DF world size in past, it turned out to be around as big as an continent on Earth, I forget if it was one of the Americas ( North/South ) or Asia in term of scale. Though that's on maximum size. I think the analysis was done using adventure mode traveling speed and day/night cycle estimation.

[Talvieno]

If you could find a link to one of those threads, I'd appreciate it. My personal estimation with day/night traveling speed I already stated... and it gets the max world size up to about 736 miles across, which is still considerably less than any real-world continent.

[AutomataKittay]

I recall it from fairly old version, like a few years ago. But I'll try to see if I can dig it up!

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=107650.0 relatively recent one but with similar method as yours

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19678.0 and relatively old thread with world size. I'm not having much luck finding the one I saw, other than it was around 40dish

[Talvieno]

Excellent! Thank you.

The first link is incorrect, as Darklord92 included both world tiles and region tiles as separate, while the world map is actually just a zoomed-out region map, making his calculations 16x too far. The rest of the science is impressive, though it's (in my opinion) largely incorrect as well.
The second link is great, and also includes an awesome link to one of Toady's posts:

The 1/8 of a planet comes from the desire for a diverse set of biomes, and the UK statements come from the tile size of the world (197376x197376).  If you throw out a, say, 2 meter side to a tile (no need to start the tile size discussion again...), then you arrive at 155,829 km^2.  The island of Great Britain is 209,331-215,595 km^2 according to different parts of wikipedia.  The quest for a more representative island can begin at this time.  South Island, New Zealand is looking pretty good.  We can go all LotR movies there.  That assumes the 4m^2 tile size of course, which is arbitrary.  My calculations, are, as usual, suspect, so don't hold me to them.

This statement of his confirms my mathematics, as 155,829 km^2 = 394.75km x 394.75km, which is what I gave as the max world size.

[hermes]

All sounds good to me, and it feels subjectively correct just wandering around as an adventurer as it tales only a few days to get anywhere. 

What seems in question to me is not the dimensions of a tile but the nomenclature; region or world.  DF uses both these words to describe the land, and most people use world out of habit from world-gen.  But to me it seems like each land clearly is just a region of a larger world, hence the random and single pole, which is a nice way of sidestepping incredibly small maps being rocks housing an atmosphere and life.

[Lord_Phoenix]

All sounds good to me, and it feels subjectively correct just wandering around as an adventurer as it tales only a few days to get anywhere. 

What seems in question to me is not the dimensions of a tile but the nomenclature; region or world.  DF uses both these words to describe the land, and most people use world out of habit from world-gen.  But to me it seems like each land clearly is just a region of a larger world, hence the random and single pole, which is a nice way of sidestepping incredibly small maps being rocks housing an atmosphere and life.

Yeah, if you consider a generated map to be a part of a larger spherical planet with the equator at either the top or bottom of the map and the north or south pole towards the other end, then the generated map makes up at most 1/4th of the total world map.

[blue sam3]

Excellent! Thank you.

The first link is incorrect, as Darklord92 included both world tiles and region tiles as separate, while the world map is actually just a zoomed-out region map, making his calculations 16x too far. The rest of the science is impressive, though it's (in my opinion) largely incorrect as well.
The second link is great, and also includes an awesome link to one of Toady's posts:

The 1/8 of a planet comes from the desire for a diverse set of biomes, and the UK statements come from the tile size of the world (197376x197376).  If you throw out a, say,  side to a tile (no need to start the tile size discussion again...), then you arrive at 155,829 km^2.  The island of Great Britain is 209,331-215,595 km^2 according to different parts of wikipedia.  The quest for a more representative island can begin at this time.  South Island, New Zealand is looking pretty good.  We can go all LotR movies there.  That assumes the 4m^2 tile size of course, which is arbitrary.  My calculations, are, as usual, suspect, so don't hold me to them.

This statement of his confirms my mathematics, as 155,829 km^2 = 394.75km x 394.75km, which is what I gave as the max world size.

However, it does also mean that you can fit middle earth (or at least the film sets) in a DF world.

[darklord92]

Excellent! Thank you.

The first link is incorrect, as Darklord92 included both world tiles and region tiles as separate, while the world map is actually just a zoomed-out region map, making his calculations 16x too far. The rest of the science is impressive, though it's (in my opinion) largely incorrect as well.
The second link is great, and also includes an awesome link to one of Toady's posts:

The 1/8 of a planet comes from the desire for a diverse set of biomes, and the UK statements come from the tile size of the world (197376x197376).  If you throw out a, say, 2 meter side to a tile (no need to start the tile size discussion again...), then you arrive at 155,829 km^2.  The island of Great Britain is 209,331-215,595 km^2 according to different parts of wikipedia.  The quest for a more representative island can begin at this time.  South Island, New Zealand is looking pretty good.  We can go all LotR movies there.  That assumes the 4m^2 tile size of course, which is arbitrary.  My calculations, are, as usual, suspect, so don't hold me to them.

This statement of his confirms my mathematics, as 155,829 km^2 = 394.75km x 394.75km, which is what I gave as the max world size.

Hmm than what do you propose as a fix to my calculations? I viewed each "zoom" from local to region as multiplying by 16 from the original 48 by 48 mbark map. as 48x48 embark tiles(dwarfmode adventure mode etc tiles) fit in a local tile, as 16x16 local tiles fit in a region, and 16x16 region tiles fit into a large world.

[Talvieno]

First off, I apologize if I offended you. I wasn't intending what I said as an attack.

<Deleted huge portion of my own text>

Nevermind, I see what you did now. You took the world size and split it into two parts. However, as the "region" map can shift around, and is essentially a viewscreen, it doesn't need to be included in the calculations. Instead of 48x16x16x16, it should be 48x16x257, as the large world size is actually one tile larger than 256, or 16x16. This means your calculations are only off by 302,579,712, which is only a fraction of your thirty-eight billion (about 1/128, really, so you were less than 1% off).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

However, as Toady has set the tile size as 2x2x3 meters (l,w,h), or approximately 6.56x6.56x9.84 feet, the rest of your calculations are off by a bit (off by about 3.56x3.56x2.84 ft). Your math is flawless, though, it's just your data that's incorrect. But... that wasn't what I was finding issue with. With what I was finding issue with, you were largely right. I made a mistake, and I apologize.

[darklord92]

First off, I apologize if I offended you. I wasn't intending what I said as an attack.

<Deleted huge portion of my own text>

Nevermind, I see what you did now. You took the world size and split it into two parts. However, as the "region" map can shift around, and is essentially a viewscreen, it doesn't need to be included in the calculations. Instead of 48x16x16x16, it should be 48x16x257, as the large world size is actually one tile larger than 256, or 16x16. This means your calculations are only off by 302,579,712, which is only a fraction of your thirty-eight billion (about 1/128, really, so you were less than 1% off).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

However, as Toady has set the tile size as 2x2x3 meters (l,w,h), or approximately 6.56x6.56x9.84 feet, the rest of your calculations are off by a bit (off by about 3.56x3.56x2.84 ft). Your math is flawless, though, it's just your data that's incorrect. But... that wasn't what I was finding issue with. With what I was finding issue with, you were largely right. I made a mistake, and I apologize.

oh bah i'm far from offended. theories are theories they are by definition disprovable, and by that improvable. For instance i was not sure that the world map had 257 tiles instead of 256. hmmm as for the actual size of the tiles it's easy to change the values.

originally i calculated them all as 16x16 with the exception of the 48x48 however here is the new numbers of how i did it: